> I must say I wish I knew by what magic a person divines which of the many > files need to be configured to solve a particular Tex/LaTeX/dvips/whatever > idiosyncracy. [...] You, and anybody else here interested in TeX, should probably try and look up the book "Making TeX Work" by Norman Walsh. It is Yet Another great book published by the O'Reilly & Assoc. folks, and gives an excellent overview of how the various files work together to make TeX work. Jim